Most social, fun and extroverted selective schools

[Anonymous]

Penn outside of Wharton and SEAS, Claremont McKenna, and UCLA

[Anonymous]

Bucknell is a blast, but not a great fit for extreme introverts or anti-Greek types. Very work hard play hard, and outcomes are fantastic, especially in finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

Great question. We’ve been asking the same lately.

So far, we keep hearing Wake and BC. What else?

We thought maybe Vanderbilt, but apparently it’s harder to get into now than Duke/Northwestern were in the 90s.

Disagree with Wake… would put Tulane and Lehigh ahead of Wake

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

Great question. We’ve been asking the same lately.

So far, we keep hearing Wake and BC. What else?

We thought maybe Vanderbilt, but apparently it’s harder to get into now than Duke/Northwestern were in the 90s.

Disagree with Wake… would put Tulane and Lehigh ahead of Wake

How so?

[Anonymous]

UVA

[Anonymous]

UVA, Michigan, UCLA, and Cal. Great school spirit, lots of involved students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a recent graduate of the top school that conventional wisdom has declared FUN (Vanderbilt). This kid has a close friend attending the School Where Fun Goes to Die (Chicago) during the same years.

My kid, during many trips to stay with his friend on campus, found Chicago much more social, genuinely engaging and collaborative than Vanderbilt. People actually looked up from their phones and engaged and talked to each other and formed new clubs.

If however an elaborate tailgate scene is what you're actually asking, then yes, Vandy does well in that regard

Agree

[Anonymous]

ND

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

Great question. We’ve been asking the same lately.

So far, we keep hearing Wake and BC. What else?

We thought maybe Vanderbilt, but apparently it’s harder to get into now than Duke/Northwestern were in the 90s.

I don’t understand the eye roll. Yeah, these schools were not that hard to get into in the 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

None of the top 20. That was a different era. 12-25% acceptance rate depending on school and 1/2-3/4 of all current most selective colleges (ivies plus the next 5-8 privates) had students who scored less than 95th%ile. Now these same schools have 3/4 98-99+%ile and with a 3-8% acceptance rate for them, these kids have to do far more than we did. They take much harder classes in high school. They are a different group(who wind up matriculants at these places). My kid’s t10 dean did a whole presentation on it at parents weekend, correcting scores from the 90s so they were comparing %ile range to percentile range . The students have more mental health issues, they in some ways are less independent, and yet overall are far smarter than we were on average.
I am in NC and know more than a couple top of the class students who picked UVa OOS or UNC in state over Duke or ivies for this reason. Some of them have parents who went to Duke. UNC is a similar balance to what Duke used to be: about 25% are the 99%ile type super nerds. Sorry to the nerds out there but someone has to say it. People who were average Duke students back then would never fit now. Of course they also would never get in!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the kid. My kid went to Hopkins and party hard, as did his friend group. They all graduated.

Would I recommend to most folks that's a good idea, not really. However it really will depend on your kid and their friend group.

Sounds like you’ve been doing a little partying yourself. Why don’t you take some ibuprofen, sleep it off, & get back to us in a couple days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a recent graduate of the top school that conventional wisdom has declared FUN (Vanderbilt). This kid has a close friend attending the School Where Fun Goes to Die (Chicago) during the same years.

My kid, during many trips to stay with his friend on campus, found Chicago much more social, genuinely engaging and collaborative than Vanderbilt. People actually looked up from their phones and engaged and talked to each other and formed new clubs.

If however an elaborate tailgate scene is what you're actually asking, then yes, Vandy does well in that regard

Agree

Have heard the UChicago fun description a lot over last 2-3 years.

Is it still true today?

How do kids socialize? Downtown Chicago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

None of the top 20. That was a different era. 12-25% acceptance rate depending on school and 1/2-3/4 of all current most selective colleges (ivies plus the next 5-8 privates) had students who scored less than 95th%ile. Now these same schools have 3/4 98-99+%ile and with a 3-8% acceptance rate for them, these kids have to do far more than we did. They take much harder classes in high school. They are a different group(who wind up matriculants at these places). My kid’s t10 dean did a whole presentation on it at parents weekend, correcting scores from the 90s so they were comparing %ile range to percentile range . The students have more mental health issues, they in some ways are less independent, and yet overall are far smarter than we were on average.
I am in NC and know more than a couple top of the class students who picked UVa OOS or UNC in state over Duke or ivies for this reason. Some of them have parents who went to Duke. UNC is a similar balance to what Duke used to be: about 25% are the 99%ile type super nerds. Sorry to the nerds out there but someone has to say it. People who were average Duke students back then would never fit now. Of course they also would never get in!

Except UNC is mostly instate kids…very difficult vibe.
Many of the instate kids have stats far below OOS kids.

[Anonymous]

USC? Maybe not a good enough school for lots of dcum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are like Duke and northwestern in the 1990s?

Great question. We’ve been asking the same lately.

So far, we keep hearing Wake and BC. What else?

We thought maybe Vanderbilt, but apparently it’s harder to get into now than Duke/Northwestern were in the 90s.

Disagree with Wake… would put Tulane and Lehigh ahead of Wake

Ick. Not Tulane.
Definitely on a downswing at our private.